IT ads that sell impossible dreams

As pointed out by The Reg, a new issue of print magazine Computing Which? claims some advertising for IT products is "selling impossible dreams" with companies "advertising products unable to live up to the claims made in their ads and on their packaging"...

Then there's HP's claims that its Photosmart 7550 can print 17 black and white pages a minute. Tests by Computing Which? found that the printer could only manage six pages a minute.

Could it be that we have simply got used to these so-called facts? As far as I can recall it's been like this in the mainstream IT sector for years. Sure we enthusiasts can tell the difference but what about dad and moms out there, could something be done to rule these ads?

The sad thing about all this is the public that is led to believe these lies, but that goes with any form of false advertising. If something is to be done about false advertising IT products then a new more highly enforced law should be introduced which also takes care of false advertising in any form not just IT products. I hope this is done soon, but that would require IT "advisers" to be knowledgeable or someone to conduct tests on all of these products who has some sort of authority. The thing is IT jobs are filled with mostly amateurs who claim they know certain things and the public (and employers) believe them. So, hopefully one day we can also rid the IT profession of these script kiddies and new users who ran out to get an MCSE with no prior knowledge.

That's kinda what I was wondering. Hopefully whoever did those tests printed something like a full page like you said in draft quality.

I have to say though I've always been pretty impressed with HP as far as printers go and they are the only printers that I will buy right now and I recommend them to everyone. Though I would never buy an HP computer or recommend one.